Archive for the ‘Performance’ Category

KOOZA tells the story of The Innocent, a melancholy loner in search of his place in the world.

KOOZA is a return to the origins of Cirque du Soleil: It combines two circus traditions – acrobatic performance and the art of clowning. The show highlights the physical demands of human performance in all its splendor and fragility, presented in a colorful mélange that emphasizes bold slapstick humor.

The Innocent’s journey brings him into contact with a panoply of comic characters such as the King, the Trickster, the Pickpocket, and the Obnoxious Tourist and his Bad Dog.

Between strength and fragility, laughter and smiles, turmoil and harmony, KOOZA explores themes of fear, identity, recognition and power. The show is set in an electrifying and exotic visual world full of surprises, thrills, chills, audacity and total involvement.

Aziza Mustafa Zadeh – also known as The Princess of Jazz, or Die Prinzessin des Jazz or as Jazziza, was born (December 19, 1969; Baku) to musical parents Vagif and Eliza Mustafa Zadeh. Vagif was a pianist and composer, famous for creating mugam-jazz fusion in which his daughter now plays. Eliza is a classically trained singer and Georgia native.

They first noticed their daughter’s sensitivity to music when she was eight months old. As Aziza recalls the story her mother tells: “Once, my father was improvising at the piano playing in the mugam mode known as “Shur,” which creates a mood that evokes very deep, sad emotions. As my father was playing, I started to cry. Everyone wondered what was happening to me. Why was I crying? And then mother realized the correlation between my feelings and the music. ‘Vagif, please,’ she told my father, ‘change the scale. Go to Rast. Play Rast.’ And he did. Now ‘Rast’ is characterized by its joyfulness and optimism. And sure enough, with tears still running down my cheeks, I started to make dance-like movements. And Mom pointed out, ‘Look, look what she’s doing! Change back to Shur!’ And when he did, I started crying again louder than before. At least, that’s what they tell me. Back to Rast, and I began dancing again.”

A boy lives in a city where the arrival of winter has brought long shadows and intense cold – but no snow!

He interacts with an extraordinary cast of high-energy urban street characters, including acrobats, dancers and talking marionettes. But when the snow doesn’t arrive, he embarks on a quest with three companions – a female shaman who’s lost in the city, a shy man destined to discover his courage and the shadow of a young girl – to find the snow and bring it back where it belongs.

The adventurers journey to an imaginary country called Wintuk – a world without sunlight – where they encounter the rich culture of the People of the North and extraordinary giant characters made of ice. When at last the sun returns, they fly home on the wings of a giant crane and generate a swirling snowstorm.